Of all the things humans rely on plants for-sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber-surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a "drug"? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime?
In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs-opium, caffeine, and mescaline-and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?
In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively-as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.
（文字整理/文謙益）
在人類依賴植物的方方面面中--食物、美容、藥物、香味、風味、纖維--最令人費解的是我們用它們來改變意識：刺激或舒緩、攪亂或完全改變我們的精神感受。以咖啡和茶為例：世界各地的人都用咖啡因來提神。但我們並不會把咖啡因視為藥物，或者將每日的攝取看作藥物成癮，只因為它合法而且為社會所接受。那麼，什麼是“毒品”？譬如說，為什麼我們可以接受用茶葉泡茶，而拿罌粟的種籽泡茶卻成了一種聯邦的罪行？
在這本《植物靈藥》中，麥可•波倫深入研究了三種從植物提煉的藥物--鴉片、咖啡因和仙人掌毒鹼--並將我們對它們陌生和武斷的看法轉變成大大地鬆了一口氣。歡迎大家在攝取這些藥物的同時，一起來探索並參與伴隨而來的文化，（就咖啡因來說，盡量不去攝取它），波倫認為人類超迷戀這些能對精神產生作用的植物。為什麼我們竭力想改變我們的意識，另方面卻用法律、習俗和緊張焦慮的情緒來圍堵這種普遍的慾望？
在這部融合了歷史、科學和回憶錄，甚至融入了公民新聞的獨特新書中，波倫從幾個不同的角度和背景來審視並體驗這些植物，並對一個經常被簡化處理的主題帶來嶄新看法--不論這些毒品合不合法。波倫表示，當我們將它們攝入體內並讓它們改變我們的思想時，我們正用一種最深刻的方式在接觸自然，所以我們對這些植物是否合法並不感興趣。本書的部份內容來自作者二十五年前發表的一篇文章，它對影響精神的植物提出了開創且獨特的思考，以及我們長期以來對這些植物的迷戀，它映照了人類的基本需求和渴望、我們思想的運作以及我們與自然世界的糾葛。